Retired NYPD Chief Anthony Izzo, 75, drowned in the backyard pool of his Stony Brook home on Friday evening, according to police, in a death that has drawn Suffolk County Homicide Squad detectives even as investigators say they do not suspect foul play. A relative found Izzo inside the pool around 7:45 p.m. and called 911, and first responders performed CPR before he was rushed to Stony Brook University Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
Suffolk County Police Sixth Precinct officers and Stony Brook Fire Department crews responded to the home on Malverne Lane, according to Daily Voice, which reported the emergency call came in at roughly 7:45 p.m. Stony Brook, a hamlet on Long Island's North Shore in Suffolk County, was in the middle of severe thunderstorms and heavy winds when the call arrived, as reported by Greater Long Island. The New York Post, which first reported on Izzo's death Saturday, wrote that the Suffolk County Police Department said his body was found by a relative inside the pool.
Homicide Squad Involvement Is Standard, Not a Sign of Suspicion
The Suffolk County Police Department assigned its Homicide Squad to investigate, but that step is standard procedure for any unattended death regardless of whether criminality is suspected, according to Newsday's report. Investigators do not suspect foul play was involved, per the Post's reporting on the police account. The detective oversight exists to establish an official cause of death and formally rule out foul play in cases like this one.
Izzo's death adds to what Newsday describes as a troubling recent pattern across Suffolk County. His drowning marked at least the fourth pool drowning fatality in the county in recent weeks, following July deaths of a 2-year-old girl in Mastic Beach, a 3-year-old boy in Central Islip, and a 73-year-old woman in Huntington, the outlet reported. Public health researchers note that older adults face particularly high drowning risks in residential pools, often from sudden slips or medical events that leave them unable to lift themselves out of the water, according to the Agency on Aging of South Central Connecticut.
A County Already Confronting a Drowning Crisis
The scale of the problem prompted action even before this summer's cluster of deaths. Suffolk County recorded 24 drowning deaths in 2024, a 60 percent increase from the prior year that accounted for nearly 30 percent of all drownings statewide, according to SBU News. Those numbers led local officials and Stony Brook Medicine to launch the county's first Drowning Prevention Action Plan in August 2025.
A Four-Decade Rise Through NYPD Leadership
Izzo's law enforcement career began as a police trainee at age 17 in 1968, according to the Post. He went on to serve as commanding officer of the 115th Precinct in Jackson Heights, Queens, in 1995 before Commissioner Raymond Kelly promoted him from head of the department's Narcotics Division to Chief of the Organized Crime Control Bureau in January 2006, putting him in charge of vice, auto crimes, illegal firearms, and gang intervention operations, per VINnews.
That command placed Izzo at the center of one of the department's most consequential controversies. After the November 2006 police shooting of Sean Bell on his wedding day in Queens, community advocacy organizations publicly demanded Izzo's removal as OCCB chief because he had established the undercover vice unit involved in the operation, as reported by Fox News at the time. Izzo remained in the role through years of major organized crime enforcement. In August 2012, he oversaw a three-year OCCB undercover surveillance operation that analyzed hundreds of hours of video footage to indict 19 members of rival drug trafficking groups tied to East Harlem's Wagner Houses, according to the New York Amsterdam News. Two months later, detectives under his command worked with federal prosecutors to indict 25 people in a multi-million-dollar nationwide illegal sports gambling ring, the FBI said at the time.
Remembered as a Proud Italian-American and Family Man
Izzo was the son of a New York City police officer and was later named a Man of the Year honoree, according to the Post's reporting. He was a lifetime member of the NY Police Department Columbia Association, a fraternal organization representing Italian heritage within the department, and supported the group for many years. The organization expressed gratitude for his years of service, friendship, and continued support, and described him as a proud police chief and Italian-American.
The Detective Endowment Association wrote that Chief Izzo dedicated decades of his life to protecting New Yorkers and supporting the men and women of the NYPD. A precinct statement added that his leadership and dedication left a lasting legacy.
